We hurtled at a hundred miles an hour over broccoli treetops, the clouds now skimming the top of the plane. My teeth rattled in my head. The pilot shouted, spitting with panic as he gestured at a stretch of river coiling below, then mopped a sheen of sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

“What’d he say?”

“He wants to go back!” Omar shouted.

“In one minute, I turn around!” the pilot blurted in Spanish.

Omar gripped his shoulder. “Keep going, we have plenty of gas. Get to the airstrip!”

But the forest was an immense mask, hiding everything that lay beneath. The pilot wordlessly dipped toward an opening in the green where the river was widest.

“There!” Omar barked.

The pilot swooped down deeper into the trench of the river, struggling mightily to keep the wingtips between the branches as they flashed by on both sides. We were so close I could see individual leaves, purple and red bromeliads blooming from the crowns of the trees. We banked as the river turned, the pilot paling at every tight curve. Giant white birds burst from the banks at our approach. Beneath us, a small semicircle of cleared land edged the river, just a few dozen huts, a longhouse, everything on stilts.

“Panchito!” Omar leaned forward gripping my seat, his breath heating my bare shoulder. “Where’s the airstrip?”

“Grown over!” Panchito yelled into the noise of the engine. “We have to use the river.”

“No, we’re fucking not,” the pilot said, tendons on his neck standing out in gristly cords as he hauled back on the choke, tearing a stretch of canvas on the floor of the plane. The nose yanked up and we slammed back against our seats; again, the cargo shifted. Pistons ground together, screeching; the air filled with smoke.

Omar looked at me big-eyed, grabbed my arm. “Change places with me!” Not waiting for a response, he flipped my buckle open and yanked me toward him. I rolled onto the floor and looked up at Panchito, his face pale and clammy, fear in his eyes mirroring mine.

“Pull up the wheels!” Omar commanded the pilot, who sat motionless at the controls as we sped farther and farther from the village.

“We go back to Cochabamba!” the little man shouted.

“Pull up the fucking wheels!” Omar held a knife to his throat, nicking him. Fat drops of blood bloomed, painting a red line alongside his bobbing Adam’s apple. “Do it!”

As the pilot struggled to keep us airborne and his throat from the blade, Omar reached past him and turned a metal crank that moaned even louder than the engine. The teeth of the gear caught, grinding and clanking deep in the guts of the machine. “Now turn around and go back to Ayachero, you weak piece of shit.”

We pulled up and zoomed just under the boiling belly of clouds, banking and turning so hard I slammed into Panchito’s gut, pressing against him before the plane swung around again, releasing us from each other. We dipped, leaning again into the slipstream, but for an entire minute, the clearing seemed lost, eaten by the jungle. Just as I dragged myself back into my seat, the village came into view again, announced by a break in the bulwark of treetops. People spilled out of their huts and streamed out onto the bank, waving at us.